Children's Early Decontextualized Talk Predicts Academic Language Proficiency in Midadolescence

Paola Uccelli; Özlem Ece Demir-Lira; Meredith L Rowe; Susan Levine; Susan Goldin-Meadow

doi:10.1111/cdev.13034

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Children's Early Decontextualized Talk Predicts Academic Language Proficiency in Midadolescence

Journal article

Peer reviewed

Children's Early Decontextualized Talk Predicts Academic Language Proficiency in Midadolescence

Paola Uccelli, Özlem Ece Demir-Lira, Meredith L Rowe, Susan Levine and Susan Goldin-Meadow

Child development, Vol.90(5), pp.1650-1663

09/2019

DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13034

PMCID: PMC6785988

PMID: 29359315

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Abstract

This study examines whether children's decontextualized talk-talk about nonpresent events, explanations, or pretend-at 30 months predicts seventh-grade academic language proficiency (age 12). Academic language (AL) refers to the language of school texts. AL proficiency has been identified as an important predictor of adolescent text comprehension. Yet research on precursors to AL proficiency is scarce. Child decontextualized talk is known to be a predictor of early discourse development, but its relation to later language outcomes remains unclear. Forty-two children and their caregivers participated in this study. The proportion of child talk that was decontextualized emerged as a significant predictor of seventh-grade AL proficiency, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, parent decontextualized talk, child total words, child vocabulary, and child syntactic comprehension.

Language

Humans

Language Development

Parents

Child, Preschool

Female

Infant

Male

Comprehension

Academic Performance

Child

Social Class

Details

Title: Subtitle: Children's Early Decontextualized Talk Predicts Academic Language Proficiency in Midadolescence
Creators: Paola Uccelli - Harvard Graduate School of Education
Özlem Ece Demir-Lira - University of Chicago
Meredith L Rowe - Harvard Graduate School of Education
Susan Levine - University of Chicago
Susan Goldin-Meadow - University of Chicago
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Child development, Vol.90(5), pp.1650-1663
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13034
PMID: 29359315
PMCID: PMC6785988
NLM abbreviation: Child Dev
ISSN: 0009-3920
eISSN: 1467-8624
Publisher: United States
Grant note: P01 HD040605 / NICHD NIH HHS
Language: English
Date published: 09/2019
Academic Unit: Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Center for Social Science Innovation
Record Identifier: 9984070544702771

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